This is why millennials will be the saviour of the analogue car

Nostalgia is king

4y ago
74.6K

The automotive landscape has been reshaped extensively in the last ten years - we're on the verge of cars driving us autonomously and in electrical silence, voiding enthusiasts of any tangible input. A crazy thing I realised at the weekend is that you can now have more input while playing a Playstation game than in many new cars nowadays. While playing Assetto Corsa with a full racing setup, I was steering, heel-and-toe shifting and listening to the sledgehammer of a soundtrack from the Sauber C9 Group C car.

In light of the electric revolution and the banning of diesel and petrol car sales in the UK in 2040, you may think that analogue cars are doomed and that the robots are hiding around the corner waiting to kill us all. But I think the opposite. The proposed ban in 2040 should boost the restoration industry - people who want to keep their internal combustion engine vehicles running will seek out whatever service they can find to keep their own little analogue dream alive.

It will the responsibility of millennials to keep these cars going.

It will the responsibility of millennials to keep these cars going.

And I think that delves down to the fact that we like to think cars are extensions of ourselves. We want to feel that clutch engaging, we want to accomplish the art of seamless rev-matching and we want nothing else other than to feel a car moving around under us, talking to us through the smallest of vibrations and wheel tugs.

The fact is that we millennials actually like it when things aren't just handed to us, because we feel some sense of achievement when opposing the trend of automation. Having a vinyl record player is now a fashion accessory, simply because of the process needed to play music rather than pressing one button on a Sonos system. The natural sounds it emits is also superior audibly to that of a digital file, simply because you can hear it crackling and see it creating the music before your very eyes.

Possibly the greatest analogue car of all time? The equivalent of a pre-Beatles Quarrymen record.

Possibly the greatest analogue car of all time? The equivalent of a pre-Beatles Quarrymen record.

I think I speak for many people my age when I say that I value the feeling when you realise you haven't checked your phone all day - you've been so busy finally living in the real world that your smartphone screen simply hasn't made an appearance. You've been so engaged in a practical activity that the insecure thought to check your Instagram likes and Twitter favourites hasn't had the time or space to establish itself.

I just listened to a podcast that involved a guy who works in the tech industry in Silicon Valley. He said that the activity that gives him the most pleasure is going to a ranch in Texas and putting up a barbed wire fence to keep cattle in their pens. No phone, no laptop, no Kindle - just the feeling of achievement when he can step back and see a physical accomplishment before his eyes.

The exact same thought process applies to millennials buying into the 'older' car industry. Sure, those of a less mechanical/practical persuasion may be more at home in a sat-navving, fully automatic, electric handbraking BMW 4-Series. But I feel that even those car people yearn to get their hands dirty with older cars, finding out exactly how the machines they love function, despite possibly being a tad lazy about it.

The automotive equivalent of raising that man's cattle fence is tinkering with the simple mechanicals under the bonnet of your 20 year old car - fixing a bit of bodywork here and refurbishing a wheel there. Knowing your car, its squeaks and rattles, knowing how to avoid the crunch in third gear and being able to drive it right to its limit of grip; that's what petrolheads of our generation look for.

This is me, being an active petrolhead millennial. My Samsung S8+ is still ready and waiting in my jean pocket though...

This is me, being an active petrolhead millennial. My Samsung S8+ is still ready and waiting in my jean pocket though...

Also, as with the record player example, nostalgia is rife these days. We can't get enough of harking back to our younger years. At '90s kids' birthdays, it's S Club 7 that gets the biggest shout of the night. The greatest era of F1 for millennials is almost certainly the V10 era of the '90s and early '00s featuring Schumacher and Montoya. And when we think Disney, we think Aladdin, The Lion King and Hercules, none of that 'Inside Out' and 'Nemo' crap.

With cars, we want to hark back to days when things were simpler. I'm a great example, considering the youngest car I've ever owned has been a 2000 Ford Mondeo ST200. The way our minds work, we don't want to spend our hard earned cash on a monthly payment towards a Hyundai i20. We rather take a punt on an E39 BMW or a '90s Jag, simply to be enveloped in an environment that's not full of touchscreen infotainment and fly-by-wire numbness.

So don't worry about these sanctions and bans coming at us left, right and centre. As long as knowledge is transferred as to how to keep our beloved gas guzzlers on the road, we can heel-and-toe into the sunset, abstaining against the dawn of the electric motor. Analogue cars can be and will be here to stay, we just need to be active in the caretaking of them.

The future is here and, for me, it's a twincam 1.6 in a MkII MX-5 and a rusty Mondeo sill. Nostalgia is king.

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Comments (56)

  • Got my first car just a few months ago and despite it being 30 years old. It is absolutely awesome

      4 years ago
  • You took the words out of my mouth but poetically. I’m sending this link to my wife who’s begging me to get rid of my Civic TypeR and get something ‘new’ with infotainment fuel efficient. My next car is probably a blob-eye Subaru sti. Old soul is what I am ✊🏽 #amandla

      4 years ago
    • Point out that you could get a newer replacement wife, but you like a bit of character!

        4 years ago
    • 😂😂😂😂 excellent point but I still want to live on this earth and drive analog.

        4 years ago
  • I'm 18. I guess I can call myself a millennial. While it's true that most millennials are out there doing fuck all and will never touch a standard transmission, I stay loyal to it. I will make sure that everyone in my friend circle and family drives manuals. It will eventually be a talent that only a few in the world will possess.

      4 years ago
  • I wish more millennials felt the same. Unfortunately there exists a gap, or more appropriately a chasm, with young car enthusiasts on one side, and the completely uninterested on the other. The day I was eligible I got my license, I purchased and started working on my first car at 14, to have it ready for my 16th birthday. Far too many of my friends have children who are turning 16, or who are even 18 and still have no license or interest in driving. Even some of my wife's college students at 22 have no license. I just don't get it.

      4 years ago
    • If you have children you better interest them in cars

        4 years ago
    • I believe the car culture is as big or larger than it ever was, and the internet brings people together. You can't expect everyone to like the same things.

      The hobby that has few of anyone of the last 3 generations, and where most of the old...

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        4 years ago
  • Im 17 and drive a Vw Beetle 82', a Fiat 500 68' and a Vespa 50 special :D i think im keeping it up gooood ;D

      4 years ago
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